The only person among us who did not appear to be relieved by these words was the Countess.  She said to me privately, that she could not feel easy about Miss Halcombe on Mr. Dawson’s authority, and that she should wait anxiously for her husband’s opinion on his return.  That return, his letters informed her, would take place in three days’ time.  The Count and Countess corresponded regularly every morning during his lordship’s absence.  They were in that respect, as in all others, a pattern to married people.

On the evening of the third day I noticed a change in Miss Halcombe, which caused me serious apprehension.  Mrs. Rubelle noticed it too.  We said nothing on the subject to Lady Glyde, who was then lying asleep, completely overpowered by exhaustion, on the sofa in the sitting-room.

Mr. Dawson did not pay his evening visit till later than usual.  As soon as he set eyes on his patient I saw his face alter.  He tried to hide it, but he looked both confused and alarmed.  A messenger was sent to his residence for his medicine-chest, disinfecting preparations were used in the room, and a bed was made up for him in the house by his own directions.  “Has the fever turned to infection?” I whispered to him.  “I am afraid it has,” he answered; “we shall know better to-morrow morning.”

By Mr. Dawson’s own directions Lady Glyde was kept in ignorance of this change for the worse.  He himself absolutely forbade her, on account of her health, to join us in the bed-room that night.  She tried to resist—­there was a sad scene—­but he had his medical authority to support him, and he carried his point.

The next morning one of the men-servants was sent to London at eleven o’clock, with a letter to a physician in town, and with orders to bring the new doctor back with him by the earliest possible train.  Half an hour after the messenger had gone the Count returned to Blackwater Park.

The Countess, on her own responsibility, immediately brought him in to see the patient.  There was no impropriety that I could discover in her taking this course.  His lordship was a married man, he was old enough to be Miss Halcombe’s father, and he saw her in the presence of a female relative, Lady Glyde’s aunt.  Mr. Dawson nevertheless protested against his presence in the room, but I could plainly remark the doctor was too much alarmed to make any serious resistance on this occasion.

The poor suffering lady was past knowing any one about her.  She seemed to take her friends for enemies.  When the Count approached her bedside her eyes, which had been wandering incessantly round and round the room before, settled on his face with a dreadful stare of terror, which I shall remember to my dying day.  The Count sat down by her, felt her pulse and her temples, looked at her very attentively, and then turned round upon the doctor with such an expression of indignation and contempt in his face, that the words failed on Mr. Dawson’s lips, and he stood for a moment, pale with anger and alarm—­pale and perfectly speechless.